This two-page worksheet uses explanations, quotations and cartoons to help students grasp that the murder of Duncan is a crime against God that upsets the whole natural order. ‘Macbeth’ is stuffed with animal references which are fun for students to look out for in lessons and extract questions, but they need help first to grasp why Shakespeare uses them. These sheets are designed to do this. You can use these sheets at any point during your study of the play. Act 2 Scene 4 is a good moment for them, though. You can show my video - ‘MACBETH - ANIMALS IN CHAOS!’ after going through the scene, then give them the worksheets. I have also included two images from the video: the simple diagram of the Great Chain of Being and my cartooned extract from Act 2 Scene 4.

These sheets turn the apostrophe into a cartoon character. It knows it's unpopular because it confuses people. 'Apostrophe's Brain' tells you that the apostrophe only knows about two things: missing letters and things belonging to something. 'Apostrophe Unpopular' lets the apostrophe explain itself: how to use it's and its; when to use clown's shoes and clowns' shoes. Pupils can then write their own examples with explanations underneath of what the apostrophe knows and is telling us in each sentence. All this gives you a way of talking about apostrophes that makes sense to a child, e.g. 'What does it know here?' 'What is it trying to tell us?' Note: If the colours do not come out in your copy, just get the pupils to use coloured highlighters for the different functions of the apostrophe: missing letters and belonging to. See also my PUNCTUATION PEOPLE resources.

These two illustrated sheets explain a way of looking at handwriting which transforms the task of improving it from a vague worry to a fun task. Instead of saying ‘I have terrible handwriting,’ learners are encouraged to think of their handwriting as a class of little people. Very often, I find that there are just a handful of letters that are unclear. When these are noticed and practised, the handwriting as a whole improves. Learners can find it quite fun as well as helpful to think of their own handwriting as a class of little people over whom they have friendly but firm control. This creates a way of talking about handwriting in a way that is easier to visualise and remember. Your marking can be included in this, too. For example, ‘Can you see which letters are falling asleep here?’ or ‘Your ‘g’ is kicking the letters on the line below again’ are comments that create a vivid yet also helpfully specific image for a learner to act upon. I always find it a pity if someone ‘hates their handwriting’, as an unruly blob that cannot change and over which they have no control. Instead, these two pages describe an approach which combines friendly curiosity in the small details that can make a big difference. Check out my PUNCTUATION PEOPLE too!

This single-page sheet helps students to spark an idea for a great story about an unusual friendship. It can be used at any time of the year, not just Halloween. They can discuss in pairs or groups what they think the different creatures in the picture are like and maybe think of names for them. Names make characters seem real in the mind and give them a life of their own. You could have fun with alliteration, e.g. Bob the Bat, and with setting a mood, e.g. Snooty Candle. Old-fashioned or unusal names can sound mysterious, e.g. Winona the Witch, while nicknames can sound funny and approachable, e.g. Mike the Monster. It can also be funny if a name has absolutely nothing to do with the nature of the creature, e.g. Colin the Coffin or Tim the Ghost. ‘The Something of Something’ is another useful pattern, not just for a character’s name, but for a story title, e.g. ‘The Creatures of Castle Spooky’, ‘The Mummy of Mortlake’, ‘Mutterings in the Moat’. Letting your characters talk to each other is fun and unpredictable: you can never be quite sure what they are going to say. Don’t let the difficulty of punctuating direct speech inhibit learners. After all, if they type this, they can always correct things like paragraphing and punctuation marks afterwards. They could illustrate their work or even turn a key scene from it into a storyboard or a strip cartoon for a younger audience than themselves. Have loads of spooky fun! SEE ALSO ‘HOW GOTHIC BEGAN AND WHAT IT UNLEASHED!’

Dramatic Irony in Shakespeare explained with a model of the Globe Theatre. Catherine Paver, English Tutor, made the mini theatre to bring Shakespeare to life for GCSE students and A Level students. This video starts with a definition of Dramatic Irony using a green plastic dinosaur. It then discusses examples from ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Page to Stage - bringing Shakespeare to life! Terms used in the video: Dramatic Irony: When the audience knows something important that the character or characters do not. This may be something that has happened, is happening or will happen in the future. Heavens The roof over the Globe stage, painted with stars, moons, and signs of the zodiac. This image reflects the Renaissance belief in the influence of the movements of the stars upon the world below. Hell The area underneath the stage where the stage trap door leads. It might be used for graveyard scenes by Shakespeare’s company, as a tomb or a place from where devils or witches appear.

This set of handouts, illustrations, websites and spooky photos of ‘Strawberry Hill House’ includes an editable Word Document. Together, they tell the story of how the Gothic Novel began - and how its author, Horace Walpole, unleashed a host of strange, entertainingly frightening and imaginative elements into the English Novel! Students can read the handout with its illustrations, then lose themselves in the photos of the House in its many moods. These could then inspire their own Gothic stories. Students could even decorate the classroom - or part of it - to make it more Gothic, just as Walpole did with his ‘little Gothic castle’. The handout starts with a list of Gothic elements. The drawing ‘WALPOLE LET THEM IN’ does not label the strange creatures. So get students to discuss their own ideas of what they all are, what’s happening, and what the images remind them of in popular culture today! The final document is a list of four useful Gothic websites for further research. The drawings may also be helpful with students who might otherwise find this quite a disturbing topic. I don’t think my zombie would scare anybody. SEE ALSO ‘UNUSUAL FRIENDSHIPS IN CASTLE SPOOKY’ - CREATIVE WRITING.

This goes with my other sheets, 'HOW TO READ OLD BOOKS AND EXPLORE NEW WORLDS'. Like them, there is a version with cartoons and a version without. These sheets offer practical advice about how to understand a book that was written a long time ago, e.g. how to spot a word that you already know when it's hiding inside another one, e.g. disembody, dissatisfied and so on. Like 'HOW TO READ OLD BOOKS', this one aims to inspire pupils by suggesting what's in it for them to explore wonderful classic novels, non-fiction etc. Analysing how those books created amazing impressions in their heads can come later.

A puppet lobster explains the bizarre imagery that Dickens uses to influence our feelings throughout ‘A Christmas Carol’. ‘Like a bad lobster in a dark cellar,’ for example. This five-minute film engages pupils in finding their own examples of Dickens’ figurative language. It emphasies how important it is not just to label them ‘simile’, ‘personification’ and so on, but also to feel their emotional power. This in turn helps pupils to remember them and to write more perceptively about them.